


Terrible Twos

by Anonymous



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angry Dean Winchester, Angry Jack Kline, Angst, Caring Winchesters, Crying Jack Kline, Emotionally Hurt Castiel (Supernatural), Gen, Guilty Jack Kline, Hurt Castiel (Supernatural), Jack Hurts Cas, Jack Kline Gets a Hug, Parent Child Issues, The Winchesters Take Care of Castiel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-04
Updated: 2019-11-04
Packaged: 2021-01-22 13:41:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,182
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21303011
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: They’re all learning as they go: an angel and two hunters trying to raise the most powerful nephilim in existence.And they all know there will be bumps in the road.But this, Jack hurting him so badly, Cas never anticipated.
Relationships: Castiel & Jack Kline & Dean Winchester & Sam Winchester
Comments: 4
Kudos: 102
Collections: Supernatural Anon Kink Meme





	Terrible Twos

“I don’t know what the hell’s gotten into him,” Dean says. “It’s like he’s turned into a spoilt brat overnight.”

It hurts, hearing Jack described like that, but Cas lets Dean vent; he knows this isn’t like it was before, when he was gone, and the brothers were grieving, and Jack was a sore reminder of why he wasn’t there.

This is sheer frustration on Dean’s part, the _parenting blip_ he’d mentioned to Cas a few weeks before, as something that happened to anybody raising a kid, but Cas doesn’t think reminding Dean of that will do much more than annoy him just now.

Just like anything he says in Jack’s defence, and he knows he has a flaw there, a habit to see it only one way, be a little too permissive.

He wishes Kelly were still here, to offer guidance, but he’s sure one of the things she would tell him would be to set boundaries.

Cas makes Dean some coffee, and leaves him to brood, and goes to speak to his son.

++

He finds Jack downstairs in one of the empty rooms. Sam had converted it to a kind of safe target gallery of sorts, and Cas stands there for a few moments watching as Jack shreds the paper targets set up for him, displaying not so much an improvement in his precision as just a grenade style approach borne of feelings no doubt echoing Dean’s.

“Let me guess,” Jack says, finally. “You’re here to give me into trouble.”

Cas sighs and steps into the room.

“There’s a reason why you were asked to stay out of the archive.”

Jack swings around, a look of disbelief on his face and Cas braces himself against the wave of emotion that buffets him along with Jack’s thoughts.

_so unfair he’s a bully why do i have to ask why can’t I just do what I want this isn’t right i shouldn’t be treated differently_

“Yeah, he just said _stay out of there_ like I’m to stay out of the armoury and stay out of the garage but stay in the bunker and it’s like I’m a prisoner. People just order me around and I’m just expected to do what you all say!”

“Jack,” Cas says, gently. “You’re still so young, and these rules are for your own protection.”

But as soon as he says ‘young’, Jack’s speaking over him, voice bitter.

“I’m not a child.”

Cas almost smiles, remembering something a long time ago, when he’d raced to the highest point in Heaven with the intention of jumping off like the other fledglings and free falling before opening his wings.

Gabriel had caught him in time, and wrapped him up tight, wings and all, in his embrace, and chided him even as he’d hugged him tight, and just chuckled when Cas had said those very words to him as he tried to fight free.

“You are,” Cas says. “Jack, you’ve only been borne a few months and they haven’t been easy and there hasn’t been much of a chance to teach you, to...to raise you. We’ll work on that, but until then, until you’re older, it’s our job to keep you safe.”

Jack scowls at him, and turns around to tear up the remaining paper targets, scoring the brick wall behind them as well in his anger.

He turns back to Castiel. “I don’t need anybody to keep me safe.”

For the first time, Cas can feel impatience, but he pushes it aside. This, this must be the way Jack’s conversation with Dean went, but shorter and sharper, and Cas is determined to find a way to reach the young nephilim.

“But I promised your mother I would. I promised _you_ I would.”

Jack’s eyes flare yellow, and he clenches his fists shut.

“No, you just wanna control me. Hold me back, because...because you’re jealous of me, aren’t you? I’ve got wings and you don’t and you’re all just jealous!”

It hurts, but Cas knows Jack doesn’t mean it. He is still a child, and children lash out, unaware of how their words can be weapons, or perhaps aware but not yet empathic enough to know those wounds are easy to inflict but hard to heal.

“I promised because I loved Kelly, and I love you, and you’re my son.”

The look Jack gives him then is cold and sharp and Cas can feel the room start to shake.

“You’re not my dad,” Jack says. “My dad wouldn’t be trying to hold me back!”

That hits Cas like a blow, makes something wrench painfully inside of him, and it’s harder to tell himself ‘he doesn’t mean it’ but this isn’t about him.

He can deal with his own pain later, because Jack needs him now.

Cas takes a step towards him, to do what he’s not sure, hug him, take his shoulder and try to calm him, but he gets no further.

Something slams into him, knocking him through the air and out into the hall. He hits the wall there hard, and something crunches inside him, and the last thing he hears is Jack wailing his name.

++

The first thing he feels when he wakes up is an odd floating sensation, and the second is a hand coming to rest on the back of his hair.

The first thing he hears is Dean’s voice, taut, telling him not to try and move.

And then the pain hits. He learns later that the brothers injected him with four times the usual maximum daily dosage (for a human) of morphine, and it scares him to think the pain he would have been in if they hadn’t, when it was so bad even with the drug in his system.

As it is, the last time he remembers hurting anywhere near this much was when Naomi drilled into his skull to reset him, while he fought and screamed and his blood ran streaming down his face.

It feels like she’s done it again, except bore into every bone in his body.

“Easy,” Dean says, “Cas, I know, don’t tense, you’ll just hurt yourself worse.”

Dean steadily talks him through it, and Cas locks onto his voice, tries to breathe and ease off, and slowly the pain ebbs to a level that doesn’t make him want to scream.

“Jack,” he begins, and Dean comes around to squat down beside him, in his line of sight.

He can think a little clearer now, and he realises he’s in the infirmary, face down on one of the beds.

“I know,” Dean says. “He came screaming for us, saying he’d hurt you, but fuck, Cas, we had no idea….”

Cas does. He reaches out with his Grace, finds it took as much of a battering as his body did, but it’s tingling through him, slowly assessing and taking steps to repair the damage.

Every single bone in his back is broken, shoulders, ribs, every single vertebra.

There are even fractures to his hips, and some minor internal damage from the force with which he was thrown into the wall.

“You gonna be able to take care of this? We….weren’t sure about a hospital and Jack…”

“I’ll heal,” Cas says. He doesn’t add that with waning Grace thanks to Heaven and the calalogue of injuries to be mended, it’ll take time. “Jack?”

Dean shakes his head. “Too scared to come near you, and he’s a little too bull in a china shop to try fixing what he did. Sam’s with him now.”

It’s a mistake, but instinctive, and Cas immediately tries to get his hands under himself to push up off the bed.

Pain flattens him down again, leaves him panting and spent, and Dean’s hand is back on his head, fingers moving through his hair.

“Dammit, Cas, you wanna make it worse? It’s okay, he’s calmer now, Sam’s dealing with it. No way I’d leave him with Jack alone if he was still in Carrie-mode. All the kid wants is to see you’re okay and come down and apologise.

“But you’re not okay, and I figured you deserved a chance to heal before you had to deal with that. Did, he, uh...did he say anything to you?”

Cas can sense what Dean’s talking about, so likely Jack told him exactly what was said and done, and there’s a moment where it hurts worse than the physical injuries Jack inflicted.

“He’s right.”

Dean pulls up a seat, and settles into it. “Really. Why, because Lucifer’s the one who knocked Kelly up?”

Cas glares at him over the crudity, and Dean shrugs.

“Do not have me using my dad and Bobby as a teaching point here,” Dean says, “but kids say shit they do not mean when they’re mad. They’ve got no control a lot of the time, no power, and if they find a way to balance that out then they’re sure as hell gonna take it. Most of the time, they don’t even think before they say it, and all of the time they don’t mean it and end up wishing they could take it back.

“Like Jack does now.”

Cas lies there quietly, diverting his attention from one pain to the other, guiding his Grace towards the most tender areas even though it knows what to do. It’s something to focus on instead of what Jack sad.

“Do you want to see him?”

Does he? There’s a part of him that flinches at the prospect, and he can’t believe he’s scared of the boy. But that’s only natural. He can’t fully move yet because Jack hurt him so badly in a fit of temper.

But he can feel regret and concern and fear nudging at him, and it’s not from Dean or Sam. It’s Jack, reaching out, trying to see if he’s okay, trying to soothe, and Cas can feel that he’s crying.

“Yes,” he says, finally. “But help me sit up first.”

“No way,” Dean says. “Cas, your bones are like broken eggshells right now.”

Not entirely, now his Grace was working on the damage. “And they’ll be exactly the same if you help me sit up. I don’t want him being scared he’s done something irreparable.”

He can read Dean’s thoughts, that Jack very nearly did, but Dean helps, and that hurts, but finally he’s sitting up, with a blanket draped over him because Dean always does they when he’s hurt, covers him with a blanket and even though it doesn’t contribute anything to the healing process, Cas always feels the better for it.

Sam brings Jack down a few minutes later, and boy’s face is tear stained and flushed.

He stands nervously in the doorway, eyes darting to Cas then back to the floor, and occasionally to Dean as if he knows at some point Dean will be the one to deal with this, and also as if he knows it’s Dean’s permission he’ll need to come any nearer.

“Jack,” Cas says, and again Jack looks to him and then to Dean and Dean nods at him, sharp, but doesn’t move away.

Jack shuffles in, and stops at the end of the bed.

“I’m sorry,” he says, his voice sounding rough from tears. “Castiel, I never meant to hurt you, I don’t know why I did that! And I never meant what I said.”

Cas wishes it were that easy, but even bearing in mind what Dean told him and Jack’s apology, it doesn’t immediately soothe away the hurt.

Jack seems to sense it. He’s very gentle as he rests his hand over Cas’s. 

“He’s nothing to me,” he says, voice desperate. “Castiel, you’re my father. I chose you. I chose you because I knew you were good, you’d take of me and my mother, and you did. You do, and I hurt you despite that, and I’m so, so sorry!”

Cas stares at him, and then looks helplessly at Dean, and sees there that Jack has probably undone a lot of the progress he’d made with the hunter, but that is something to be addressed at another time.

It makes his entire body throb with pain, but Cas holds out his arms.

And Jack comes to him, gentle and slow, mindful of Cas’s injuries, and sinks into his embrace.

“Dad,” he whispers. “I’m sorry, I am, I never meant to hurt you.”

Cas strokes his fingers through Jack’s hair, and catches Dean’s eyes, nods, watches Dean get up reluctantly, and follow Sam out to the hall.

He loiters there, they both do, having given as much ground as they’re ready to just now, and that’s okay.

This is a situation they will all need to work to resolve, and Cas is sure that they will.

They’ve all hurt each other in the past, which seems to be as much a part of being a Winchester as hunting and bearing the burden of undealt with issues.

But being part of this family also means not having to go through anything alone, and that makes up for the rest of it.


End file.
